Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Wednesday Morning Follow-up

I'm too thinly spread right now to fully explain why I chose the post I chose for Monday's Feature, but I do want to see where the topic leads. After all, more than one commenter seemed to miss my point so elaboration is definitely needed. This paltry offering says nothing close to everything I want to say about Power Girl, but maybe it'll help you understand my reasoning. Here are three quotes from three very different people arguing for three very different reasons:

Erik Larsen, pleading for fans to stop complaining about Power Girl's breasts:

The Phantom Lady's only distinguishing characteristics are her ample cans. That's pretty much all she has going for her. Ditto Power Girl. To tone them down is to strip them of their identities.

That's enough for me. I don't want to read Power Girl. I'm afraid that, if I start reading about her, I'll have to write a fic wherein PG goes through seven kinds of merry hell (in what would, no doubt, suspiciously resemble a fantasy-standard epic quest) to find some kind of alternate-Earth Kryptonite that would work long enough for her to have a breast reduction.

(Edit: Library Lass explains her true intentions behind the post here, but despite my own mistake I'm leaving this up because 1) The post sounds too real, 2) All of the people agreeing with it, and 3) we're getting good conversation out of it. There's still a lot to say on the subject)

James Lamb Jr, chiming in on why he feels Power Girl is an antifeminist character:

You really don't get nastier than this Pamela Anderson knock-off in mainstream comics, yet, what's most interesting about that LJ (and most feminist discussions of Power Girl I've come across) is that the massive chest automatically incinerates whatever feminist aggression the character may exude - even when Wonder Woman's chest rivals Earth-2's bountiful bosom. Power Girl's never judged on the content of her character by anyone - male or female - because of her titanic top-heaviness.

I echo D. Edward Sauve. They get as far as cleavage, then stop. Lamb seems the most reasonable of the three right up until that last sentence. Using generalizations almost always makes your point wrong.

Now see, I don't think it's incorrect to make assumptions based on a fictional character's physical appearance because, unlike a real person, a fictional character doesn't exist independently of the page. We're SUPPOSED to make assumptions based on the way she's drawn and written. The dilemma with a character like Power Girl is that it's often an uphill battle for writers to interpret her character against its visual depiction.

From one history: "Her origins were a convenience, but in many ways Power Girl was her own character. For one thing, she was dubbed Power Girl instead of Supergirl and given her own costume, one not derivative of Superman. Both she and Supergirl were blond, being versions of the same person, after all, but any visual similarity stopped there. Power Girl's costume was a white one-piece that ended high on her hips, snuggling them tightly, plus a red cape, tied in the royal manner above her chest, and a red belt, laid on the bias around her with a circular yellow belt buckle. She also had large oval cut out of her white uniform just above her rather large breasts, the sole purpose of which was clearly to show off her cleavage. Befitting her autonomous name and outfit, Power Girl would be a clear feminist in contrast to Supergirl's sometimes mousy, prim and proper ways." So the name was designed to be feminist, but the costume was explicitly designed to appeal to prurience, which many feminists interpret as objectification and, therefore, anti-feminist.

The history then goes on to state, "In a famous comics anecdote of unknown veracity, artist Wally Wood reportedly told friends that he planned to draw Power Girl's breasts larger and larger, issue by issue, until told by his editors to stop. According to the story, no one ever did before Wood left the title. His editors may have thanked Wood had they known, and Wood had never pushed her bust size beyond believability -- or at least what's considered believable in the realm of super-hero comics, accustomed to bulging muscles and beautiful women with enormous tits. Later artists, as if honoring Wood's intent, would sometimes seem to continue his dastardly plan."

"Believability" seems to be one of those subjective areas, though, doesn't it? It's much harder for me to suspend disbelief when it comes to lazy drawing nowadays than it used to be.

Whilst it isn't true that big boobs means bimbo, or mean lacking in character, the problem is that, as Elayne points out, PG is not a real person. If the writers and artists working on PG define her as a big-breasted bimbo then essentially, that's what she is.

I'm not saying that all writers/artists do treat her this way, but there are certain examples one can find. Take, for example, the issue of Superman/Batman where Batman basically suggests that PG use her enormous boobs to distract a 13-year old boy, because - you know - clearly that's all she's good for, or something.

Has nobody noticed anything about Power Girl beyond her shape? It seems that is where these 3 voices stop. PG has one heck of a nasty attitude, she seems very angry at times & it appears to me that she wears the clothes she wears as if to say "I have HUGE breasts! LOOK AT THEM, LOOK AT THEM! HAH! You are looking at my breasts, you are weak and stupid. You are narrow-minded & sex starved. You will never appreciate me for WHO I am. LOOK AT MY BREASTS!!! Hah! Caught you staring at them again."

Her 'power' is the power to distract and then be angry that it worked. Kind of like a magician that hates an audience stupid enough to enjoy the magic he does.

I think that if the character lost this attitude the readers would begin to have a chance to accept her as a character, but the writers write her in this manner & the artists draw her as such. I'm reminded of Jessica Rabbit "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

Also Superman/Batmn #27 is a Power Girl/Huntress story & as my wife stated "every panel of that story looks painful on so many levels"

Elayne said: I don't think it's incorrect to make assumptions based on a fictional character's physical appearance because, unlike a real person, a fictional character doesn't exist independently of the page. We're SUPPOSED to make assumptions based on the way she's drawn and written.

But that's just stereotyping people according to their body types. If we go with what you say then we couldn't and shouldn't - for example - make a character who is a fat guy and a very capable professional, who happens to like burgers and candy too much, instead of a bumbling comedy sidekick imbecile. In that case Sammo Hung would be out of a job. No, I don't think we are supposed to make assumptions based on the way the character is drawn, unless we want to limit the medium to just stereotypes.

"We're SUPPOSED to make assumptions based on the way she's drawn and written."

So every character in fiction is reduced to a stereotype based on their physical appearance? The only reason for having a character who deviates in any way from baseline is to either have them play the stereotype role or to subvert the stereotype role for that bodytype?

That is more bullshit that a cattle farm could produce in a year. Why should fictional characters conform to stereotypes? Even in such a stylistic form as superhero comics there is no reason why the only reason for a person to have a particular bodytype is so that they are the walking stereotype of that bodytype anymore than a character should be defined by any other single characteristic.

Nodding to what Elayne said - for me, it's not so much stereotyping about the character herself as it is what kind of story is going to be portrayed.

Like the covers of the She-Hulk books - yes, She-Hulk is a beautiful woman, but the covers are such gratuituous cheesecake that it's an effort to get past that visual obstacle and enjoy the story. I know I've heard of people avoiding the book because the covers are so irritating.

Similarly, I don't usually keep up on any of the books that Power Girl is in, so I barely know anything about her character. All I have to judge her on is cover art and occasional preview panels, and whenever I've seen her featured in one of those, my gut reaction is "Great, yet another guy likes drawing gratuitously enormous breasts. Five bucks says the inside is full of posing and ass shots. SKIP."

This doesn't say anything about her character - if I read the books I'd probably fall into the "Power Girl is awesome" camp. I'm just saying that there can be a lot of first-impression baggage to get past.

After reading the blog entry and the first few responses to it, it's clear that the interpretive part of my brain operates on a different frequency than some folks (in case that wasn't already apparent).

West, I think James's "she's Pam Anderson! She's a pole dancer!" rhetoric does seem to peg her as a bimbo.

Which I haven't encountered in my reading of her. As I stated in the last post on this subject, I think good writers not only give PG a personality, but they tend to be consistent about it- she's sassy, confident, sometimes hot tempered, etc. To be sure, a character doesn't have personality beyond that which the writers attribute to him or her, but there's been enough validation of this particular personality type in regards to Karen- in JSA CLASSIFIED, JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT THE JUSTICE LEAGUE, etc.- for me to accept it as the character's "innate" personality, just as I accept that Wolverine is a gruff blue-collar badass and Ted Kord is a funny geek and Emma Frost has no concept of modesty or tact.

Maybe I'd judge her on her appearance alone if I hadn't happened to read these stories, but if I hadn't read any PG stories, I'd hardly be qualified to comment on her worthiness as a character, would I?

I wonder if some of the damage to Power Girl's reputation would be mitigated if DC made her secret ID a secret again. That way we could get some stories that dealt with Karen Starr, Software Engineer.

The fact that she founded, ran and eventually sold her own software company shows that she has intelligence and leadership ability in addition to her powers and figure. Plus, it would give her a chance to deal with normal people more often.

Geoff Johns and David S. Goyer remembered her techie past as part of her introduction to the JSA. Why can't the rest of DC do the same?

Look, Larsen's being an asshole as usual, but the others are just stating the obvious. Power Girl has come to be defined by the size of her breasts. This is absurd and offensive, but it's absolutely true. There's no way you can't read the first four issues of JSA Classified, where every other page seems to have a prominently placed boob gag, and not come to the conclusion that this character has come to be best known for the size of her chest.

So yes, I say shrink her boobs. It won't take away her identity; it'll give her a chance to get hers back. Because right now she's all about her bust size, which is absurd and offensive.

I don't believe having large breasts makes a person a bimbo. My question involves the possible feminist ramifications of a character like Power Girl in mainstream comics: no matter how many bad guys she knocks out, no matter how aggressive her demeanor, no matter how strong she is or what companies she owns, Power Girl is a towheaded, blue-eyed buxom bombshell in revealing spandex, and that image, without clarification, appeals to the basest prejudices of many comic readers.

A scantily-clad fictional character with large breasts isn't inherently anti-feminist, but Power Girl provides so much easy cheesecake along with her girl power it's reasonable to question how she's used in comics, and just because the reader gets minor backstory along with the boob gags doesn't mean that the boob gags don't demean the character and women in general. Black Canary and Huntress can save male hostages and smack around drug dealers with goatees and high caliber guns all they like: fighting the good fight in high heels and fishnets and Daisy Dukes offer fellow male superheroes and male readers shapely thighs and lewd crotch shots amid the heroism.

Hell, Wonder Woman, the pinnacle of comic feminism, fights crime bulging from a gold Themyscirian brassiere and star loincloth, and fans are supposed to apply the respect one provides Superman and Batman to this half-naked Amazon as well. I don't buy it. How are superheroines supposed to gain respect and sell issues when the sexist conventions of comics don't allow them to wear real clothes half the time? Something tells me that Manhunter wouldn't have faced such low sales if Kate Spencer dressed like Power Girl or Pam Anderson.

Power Girl's large breasts aren't the problem, the nigh-inevitable treatment large breasts receive in a sexist pop culture medium like comics is. But that treatment can't be ignored just because sassy independence a la Destiny's Child is in these days. Luke Cage will never be a pro-Black or Black nationalist superhero who fights the good fight for the proverbial 'hood: his oversexed, Mandingo musculature and disposition too often overshadow any positive aspects he offers the Black superhero concept.

I believe Power Girl remains a teenage boy's immature interpretation of modern feminism, but if that perspective means that I somehow can't get around an unfair and possibly sexist judgment call on Power Girl's breasts, that I have to take that risk. I just wonder why so many comic readers defend characterization, writing and art in their comics that's patently sexist and racist in order to read female and minority superheroes. Simply showing us isn't enough; we deserve respect as well.

Elayne -- I could do a whole series of posts on appearance supporting character, but this is one case where it both degrades and supports the character. The Bimbo stereotype is easy to assume by the combination of large breasts and blonde hair. The fact that it's not an accurate judgement of the character's personality says that stereotypes are an unfair judgment in this case.

Is that a sign of a bad character design? Not necessarily. Power Girl was introduced as Superman's cousin, with a personality that was larger than life. She had an hourglass figure like all other females in comics, except Wood gave her more in the bust, shoulders, and hips, and made her fairly tall as female characters went. And I don't believe that urban legend about Wood steadily increasing bra size at all. Evidence does not support it. The breasts are part of an overall largenessthat as art styles changed developed into a fixation on the breasts themselves. Those breasts are part of a whole. The comments above fixate solely on the part, not the whole.

Now, sure, she's a fictional character, so we can say it's okay to make the assumption but the asusmption's not true, and the assumption is made about women in real life. This assumption is wrong all around.

James -- Here's the thing, though, superheroines actually have a wide range of body types. What Erik Larsen draws as a D-Cup will be an A-cup when JH Williams draws it. Power Girl is one of the characters that, straight across the board, is a D-Cup at least -- making her a DDD-cup or worse in the hands of a bad artist.

That's why you don't hear the same complaints about Wonder Woman or Big Barda. Because Power Girl's breasts are consistant. Wonder Woman is traditionally much smaller. Big Barda also. Check out the Golden and Silver Age WW art, and the Kirby Fourth World stuff. Power Girl, however, was designed with a large bust. The link I put in my response to Elayne above has a lot of pictures of her from the original artist towards the bottom. Take a look. Realistic figure, and it was a superhero pose not a porn pose.

The problem with unrealistic breasts is the artist not the character. We can take care of the racist and sexist portrayals in comic books by holding the creators to a higher standard, it's not necessary to write off the women and minority characters, especially the ones that are well-developed and popular.

To be perfectly honest, I used to be a big fan of Power Girl, but I've given up on the character because too often I feel like she's being written by people who think her breasts are her prominent feature (and while I liked her JL run, I felt those series reinforced my feeling that Giffen writes women in only five flavors).

I do miss Karen Star. She did add a lot to the character and maybe my disatisfaction with the character currently is because she comes off as shallower than her past self... that and the periods when her characterization seemed to be "What's my origin?"

I was wondering where all the comments on my post were coming from. I don't actually care about Power Girl at all. She's just not on my radar, comics-wise. If you'd like a further explanation of my post, go here and scroll down until you see "Roach Is Not Funny."

Ragnell, thanks for the link. It's good to know that Power Girl wasn't always a Score magazine reject.

I disagree with your emphasis on the artists' responsibility for sexist portrayals of comic characters. True, in the hands of a bad artist, everyone with two X chromosomes struts around with natural double E cups, but the writers are just as responsible. Unfortunately, no matter what progressive creators produce, some comic characters (like Power Girl, in my opinion) are so undercut by their sexist and racist traditions that nothing can redeem them, no matter their popularity or current development.

The idea that some women and minority characters should not be written off as long as comic creators are held to a higher standard does not hold anyone to a higher standard. Sambo will always be Sambo, and just because Sambo has popularity in some circles does not mean that a progressive comic creator could swoop in and write Sambo as a populist urban civil rights leader who saves poverty-stricken African Americans from White supremacist corporate thugs, malt liquor company shareholders, and bored FEMA bureaucrats. Remember, any current popularity Sambo brings to the comic table emerges in part from his audience's love of Sambo's traditional appearance, personality, and character, so since that's offensive and anti-Black, that character can not be redeemed, nor should anyone waste time trying. I realize many disagree, but I always thought of Power Girl as feminism's second-place Sambo in comics. Nobody beats Lois Lane.

Ragnell, you've got a strong point that artist input creates superheroines with a wide range in body types today, but the further problem is that comic readers know so much about superheroine body types in the first place. I've got a Wonder Woman poster by Michael Turner that gives a great example of this. Sure, she's holding the Golden Lasso tied into a hangman's noose, but she still wearing a gold bra and star panties. That's her traditional look; are we to still consider her a feminist icon even though her working clothes barely cover a third of her body?

That's one reason why in comics, women end up sliced and diced on ice, waiting for their ringbearer boyfriends to find them behind the milk carton: comic creators can't be challenged to produce comics that respect women as sensible protagonists with interesting stories and moral codes when so-called feminist icons in comics are never rejected, or challenged to put some clothes on. Why should a comic artist portray women as more than damsels in distress or sex kittens when the most prominent female characters in mainstream comics have portrayed one or both of those stereotypes for the past forty years?

There's no respect for women and minorities in comics in general, and the idea that female and minority readers should just take what we are given by the industry and hope that the next stories they're in aren't too antagonistic toward our identities grates on this reader. The characters themselves can't be raised as positive symbols for our constituencies: they were created to comment on us without our interests in mind.

James -- I suppose if we were discussing Tarot or Lady Death right now, I'd agree with you.

But I don't believe that Power Girl's (or Wonder Woman either) costume or cup size makes her one of those irredeemably sexist portrayals. Yes, there have been versions I couldn't stand -- Like the JLE version (there, I said it), where they covered her up and turned her into all rage and stereotype -- I've still seen her handled well and the artists are capable of drawing her with respect when they pay attention.

And while I hate to see idiots defend objectification by pointing out the men are scantily clad sometimes too, the truth is that some male characters do walk around in little clothing, yet they still get more repsect from the artist. One of the things that truly annoys me is that a female character can be in long underwear and still be cheescake while the male characters can walk around in loinclothes and geter respect.

Covering the heroines up isn't going to solve that. It's not the amount of material in WW's costume that matters, it's how she's posed and how the camera's angled that becomes the difference between a respectful portrayal and a wet dream.

Elayne's first comment quoted a history that stated that Power Girl was given a risque costume to differentiate her from the "prim and proper" Supergirl. By today's standards, that sets alarm bells off. Because the sexed up heroine is the norm and that language is code for a sexualized portrayal over a strong feminine standard. Here's the thing, though, Power Girl was being differentiated from a character who had debued (I'm sorry Supergirl fans) as a doormat. Supergirl herself was just throwing off the 50s stereotypes back then. Going from prim and proper was a big deal. A "Good Girl" was allowed to be sexy.

Part of the problem with your stance that these feminist icons could put some damned clothes on is that it still speaks to the Good Girl vs Bad Girl mindset, that there is an acceptable way for female characters to behave and any sensuality is unacceptable.

The problem isn't sensuality or skin, it's how it's treated. It's when it overcomes the personality and the plot.

So, in essence, while you're right that Sambo will always be Sambo -- Power Girl is not Sambo.

Posing isn't going to help any thirteen-year-old pimply-faced male comics reader from respecting Power Girl enough to view the character a a whole person, and more than the weight of her boobs. Artist portrayal with sensible posing and non-Hugh Hefner camera placement can only do so much when the characters wear so little by design.

I don't know if in comics there is "acceptable way for female characters to behave". I hope there isn't; I'd rather the industry retain the artistic freedom to do whatever it thinks. But I don't believe feminist portrayals in comics can afford to cast the widest possible behavioral net. Sexy, sassy superheroines can promote feminist ideals, but in mainstream comics characters like Power Girl and Wonder Woman often miss that mark because their bodies are so overexposed for capitalist gain. Let's face it: in a male dominated comics industry, societal female physical hypersexualization will negatively impact female characters, and I'd like to see comic writers pen stories where Power Girl and Wonder Woman speak to this unfair difference.

But I doubt I'll ever see that, because that involves challenging comic readers whose buying power can topple publishing companies. While I understand that people with more experience with Power Girl stories than I come to different conclusions about her character, I still say that the average comic reader of a Power Girl story pays more attention to her breasts than any other feature, and not because of posing, lighting, and camera trajectory. The nuance between saint and slut poses an unfair distinction that comics' (and real life) shouldn't offer, but really, no matter how busty she was drawn, without that cleavage window Power Girl just might retain that N.O.W. membership card. Maybe.

Strong feminist women work hard and play hard, and are indeed sexy. They can be portrayed that way in comics, but when they run around in outfits that would make Lil' Kim blush, the Good Girl v. Bad Girl question needs to interact with the simple truth that sexist men devalue naked women in this society, and that misogyny reflects in comics. Without blaming the character for the disgusting antics of horny male comic writers, artists, and readers, one should ask how a character can normally leave her body on display for the male-dominated comic industry and still be considered feminist.

No matter how respectful an artist tries to be toward a superheroine, if she's wearing skintight spandex, or fishnets, or Daisy Dukes to fight crime it makes you wonder what exactly makes them feminist. Really, what does? How feminist can one be if their regular superhero attire engenders stolen glances toward one's bustline and hushed conversations between her male co-workers about her voluptuous curves behind her back? Power Girl doesn't have to wear Margaret Thatcher’s wardrobe, and the men should be more respectful and less sexist, but female elementary school teachers - women we're all socialized to respect as children - wear more than silver pasties and diamond-encrusted G-strings in the classroom. I wish so-called feminist icons in comics (and the writers and artists who keep them relevant today) could take note.

Honestly, I doubt we'd have this problem if Power Girl wasn't originally designed by men. Sure, people discount that breast enlargement theory about her origin, but I've got to believe that a feminist superhero designed by women wouldn't look like Danni Ashe in a red cape.

No matter how respectful an artist tries to be toward a superheroine, if she's wearing skintight spandex, or fishnets, or Daisy Dukes to fight crime it makes you wonder what exactly makes them feminist. Really, what does?

Um, what the character actually DOES? How she acts?

Sure, sure, the spectral pimply-faced teenage boy won't pay attention to that, and said pimply-faced teenage boy may be the Platonic representation of the average comics reader, but if we're already assuming the worst of the audience, then there's no reason we should expect anything better than ALL-STAR BATMAN each month, and the "let's make comics vaguely more palatable to female readers" movement is doomed from the start. Damn that was a long sentence.

How feminist can one be if their regular superhero attire engenders stolen glances toward one's bustline and hushed conversations between her male co-workers about her voluptuous curves behind her back?

Fine, while they snigger behind her back, she goes and catches a serial killer who targets women he views as promiscuous, testifies at his trial and is there for his appeals. In the balance, has womankind gained or lost?

Power Girl doesn't have to wear Margaret Thatcher’s wardrobe, and the men should be more respectful and less sexist, but female elementary school teachers - women we're all socialized to respect as children - wear more than silver pasties and diamond-encrusted G-strings in the classroom.

So does Power Girl. She wears the equivalent of a low-cut one-piece swimsuit, with sleeves, a cape, and boots. Not workaday wear, but she wouldn't exactly blend in at Scores either.

Besides, this wasn't even about her costume to start, but her chest. Which will still be there if she wears sweaters.

From personal experience, to me PG has always been boobs on a window. Add the complex history and the appeal of the character was zero for me. With or without the window on her boobs, she will still come off as buxom and hot. Personally, I don't think the window is necessary. Too distracting for me.

Later on I checked out a couple of issues of her story in JSA Classified because Amanda Conner was drawing her comic. I knew her pencils would do right by the character and the arc had good a buzz. I like her now, the JSA Classified story was good. It hit a lot of notes right and I shared her frustrations about the questions of her origin. As long as artist and writers don't have her doing crotch kicks and other sexualized poses that pass as attacks, then it's all good.

And about this:

No matter how respectful an artist tries to be toward a superheroine, if she's wearing skintight spandex, or fishnets, or Daisy Dukes to fight crime it makes you wonder what exactly makes them feminist. Really, what does? How feminist can one be if their regular superhero attire engenders stolen glances toward one's bustline and hushed conversations between her male co-workers about her voluptuous curves behind her back?

These are idealizations, power fantasies, a lot of us wish we were that beautiful and confident with our bodies that we could parade around like them in such outfits. Or similar, more fashinable ones ;). However, the main target audiece are boys/men. There are many issues that go on that lead to the mistreatment of these characters. That's why you got feminist comic blogs or other movements which speak agaist this and try to make differece when calling out these problems.

In the end though, your wallet speaks louder. If you don't agree with certain things in comics, then don't buy it. It's not the ultimate solution to the problem, but it's one of them. Nobody forces anyone to pick up comics. You buy what you like.

"Seriously, though, James: What's so feminist about not being proud of your body? What's so empowering about a character who's that worried about what Booster Gold's saying behind her back?" - Chris Sims

Chris, this is a cop-out. None of this debate implies that Power Girl or women like her should not be proud of their bodies. I haven't said that nor do I believe that.

The problem is that Power Girl provides a sexualized representation of a female metahuman specifically for the male gaze alone. Her breasts were created by men to please men, and obstruct Power Girl's supposed identification with feminism for that reason.

"Sure, sure, the spectral pimply-faced teenage boy won't pay attention to that, and said pimply-faced teenage boy may be the Platonic representation of the average comics reader, but if we're already assuming the worst of the audience, then there's no reason we should expect anything better than ALL-STAR BATMAN each month, and the "let's make comics vaguely more palatable to female readers" movement is doomed from the start. Damn that was a long sentence." - Evan Waters

If you are a minority comics reader, I believe you shouldn't expect anything better than All-Star Batman each month. You rarely get much more than a printed minstrel show. How often will mainstream Black male characters appear shirtless after bedding White females in comics? How often will Asian Americans perform martial arts or technical wizardry? How often will nappy-headed Black thugs speak Ebonics before robbing the defenseless on the streets of Gotham or Metropolis before some Great White Super-Hope dispatches the bad guys and saves the day?

"Fine, while they snigger behind her back, she goes and catches a serial killer who targets women he views as promiscuous, testifies at his trial and is there for his appeals. In the balance, has womankind gained or lost?" - Evan Waters

Oppression questions do not operate on some societal calculus. To somehow derive a net total for female oppression here totally misses the point.

Power Girl is a fictional character written for the sexual gratification of White guys; for me that origin alone denies her possible feminist credentials.

A story; Power Girl is my desktop background. My mother, who was visiting, looked at her last night and asked me about her because she looked so strong and interesting. So I explained her backstory. I explained how she's the original Superman's cousin, adopted daughter and annointed heir. I explained her attitude and her pride and her aggressiveness. I explained how she refused to stand in Superman's shadow and how she rocked the boat at the JSA. The upshot is my mother is now a fan of Power Girl.

I've been a fan of Power Girl ever since I first saw her. I love that she loves her breasts. I've always pegged Karen as a bit of a tease - she's gorgeous and you can look all you want but you'll never, ever touch her unless she lets you. And she knows this. And she's laughing about it. This is the woman who laughed at her stalker. Power Girl's one of the ultimate power fantasies, the woman who can wear whatever she wants and be as sexualised as she likes and still be completely safe.

Plus the boob window is giving stellar service in emphasising the fact she isn't wearing the 'S'. Everyone else in the Superman family does; even a strong, independant man like John Henry Irons seem to feel that the 'S' adds more to him. Karen's the only one who stands up under her own banner.

James -- The link I provided? That was her creation. Her early stories. The original intent of the character was to provide an Earth-2 version of Supergirl to make the interactions of the JSA more interesting. A character to banter with the old men. Old-fashioned 40s era men, she was a 70s character. Every piece of her design and personality is made from taking Supergirl (who was designed for little children) and changing something that would make her clash with the existing JSA personalities in an interesting way. Hence, a hole in her costume rather than an S-Shield and an attitude that doesn't take kindly to patriarchal patronising.

Look at the art. Is that art designed for titillation or wank fantasies? No, that's art designed to tell a superhero soap opera.

It's not the character, James, it isn't. It's not even the damned costume. It's the creators.

And liking Power Girl is not settling. That's my whole issue with your argument, you're implying that female readers are defensive about Power Girl simply because "She's all we have." No, people like her because they see themselves in her, or see something we want to be. And that is why some Power Girl fans get defensive when she's reduced to a pair of breasts.

So, the character doesn't speak to you. Okay, that's fine. That's no reason to write her off as purely for the perverts because if we do we lose a character that does speak to a lot of people. A personality that rings true. A set of values and virtues we'd like to integrate into our own personalities. Someone who says and does things that we can't do in our everday ordinary lives.

We lose a well-defined and well-loved personality to an endless parade of boob jokes, and it's already started.

Someone who's been reading comics longer than I have told me that a big part of PG, as a character (no pun-intended), was her endowment.

I remember her from some All-Star Squadron stuff, when I was a kid, and I never got that vibe from her. Ever.

But, I started a thread about this at CBR and got quite a few responses (topic prompted by Erik Larsen's comments, coincidentally) that echoed my friend's.

The way I resolve it is that damn-near any character is redeemable (Blade proved that), so even if her breasts were her signature, at one point, they needn't be endorsed by Goodyear and they certainly don't need to (and I'd prefer that they didn't) stand in for an actual personality - one that doesn't make me hate her would be nice, btw.

If she's draggin' a ton of titties around from one fight to the next, it becomes pure comedy and I enjoy the character when she's about more than that.

This'll probably hurt my point, but I enjoyed her in JLE. She was mean, she was curvy, she was in comedic situations... but she wasn't a walking rack.

That was cool, even though I like breasts as much, if not more, as the next (hetero) man.

Isn't it sexist to assume that because a woman has large breasts that she is anti-feminist or unintelligent? I thought the fact that she was comfortable with her body, strong as Superman, and able/willing to smack Guy Gardner around made her a little likeable. I also thought she was kind of a slob while at home.

Isn't it sexist to assume that because a woman has large breasts that she is anti-feminist or unintelligent?

No one is saying Power Girl's large breasts, in and of themselves, make her anything. It's that years and years of exploitative writers and artists have focused on her breasts to the detriment of any other aspect of her character. She's become a walking boob joke, and to attempt to argue that a sassy personality makes up for the fact that she's known first and foremost as a sex object is just an exercise in denial. If we're talking misogyny in superhero comics, Power Girl is part of the problem.

Well, I hate to say it, but sometimes it is a turn-on. That's not all it is, of course, and this is partly my personal taste (I like female characters like that, for some reason), but it's one of several valid descriptors.

Where I see the "sass" is that she often tosses out quips and snappy patter, she's slightly more irreverent than most superheroes without going into full-on clowning. She can get into the dramatic stuff but most of the time she goes about her work with a bit of dry wit.

For me the defining thing about Power Girl was that she could kick some major ass.

Ragnell, is it me or did PG's cup size only start to get out of control when Sears started drawing her in JLE? I remember her being buxom but reasonably so before.(Then again, I was always more of a Huntress guy myself, so I could be wrong.)

ragnell, I enjoy your stuff, but I really don't see what the fit over the Power Girl Comment is about.

I'm a woman. I'm a feminist. I find it repulsive that PG has such huge breasts, because it is clearly a sign that all the artists/writers think a woman is defined by is the size of her breasts. Because, sadly, for many years, Power Girl's brain was as empty as her chest was full. From your comments above, I suppose you were spared those issues, for which you should be glad.

Complaints about Power Girl's chest being over emphasized are AT LEAST as valid as the complaints about Supergirl needing to eat a sandwich. It's about presenting an unrealistic, distorted image of feminity and womanhood to the comic book buying audience, and I would think you would understand that, not bash such an opinion.

Samantha -- When presented as the sole reason to avoid buying a character, and as justification for assuming she has an empty head (I didn't read the Claremont series, so that may be where the idea came from) it sounds far too much like comments defending Power Girl's breasts as her only distinguishing characteristic. Both ideas throw the personality of a character away in favor of concentrating on her chest.

There's also a very big difference between Power Girl's chest and Supergirl's build that you're not considering, Samantha.

There are women out there with natural builds like Power Girl. My mother for example, is a match proportionally shall we say.

To immediately trash Power Girl for her breast size...would you then trash actual women for *daring* to be large breasted.

While there are girls that are thin, healthy thin girls tend not to have Supergirl's skeletal build. There's a big difference. Most people with that build are *sick*. With a very real disorder that can cause permanent damage or death.

And okay, let's assume for one second that a person has little enough self-confidence to decide to emulate one of these characters.

Well, a lot fewer women *die* from breast implants than they do from eating disorders.

Samantha said:Complaints about Power Girl's chest being over emphasized are AT LEAST as valid as the complaints about Supergirl needing to eat a sandwich.

1) The argument presented in the linked post isn't that PG's chest is "over emphasized", but rather that large chest = bimbo = unworthy of reading. The blame falls onto PG -- who has a strong personality in many of her runs -- and not on an industry that objectifies women and a society that believes in an inverse proportion of breast size and intelligence.

2) Complaints that Supergirl needs to "eat a sandwhich" totally trivializes the horrible reality of eating disorders, and that exact phrase is often used to further the cycle of shame that these women are subjected to. To believe that argument has ANY place in a feminist analysis is seriously fucked up.

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